This should have been a fairly easy question. Remember: one of the major reasons for the eventual proposal and ratification of the Constitution was the weakness of the government under the Articles of Confederation. One of those weaknesses, of course, was the inability to tax, which was not-so-slowly but surely driving the budding country into the ground. 

This was a difficult question. Before getting to the answers, let’s pick apart the question a little bit. The question is asking you to think about some of the abuses practiced by the British during their control of the colonies. After thinking about those, the question asks you to compare whatever abuses you’ve come up with to the protections granted in a particular clause of the 4th Amendment—the searches and seizures clause. Thus, you have to ask yourself what British practice is similar to an unauthorized search and seizure (the ones protected against in the 4th Amendment). The answer is, “writs of assistance.” A writ of assistance allowed an official to conduct a blanket search—that is, a general search without specifics in terms of location OR items sought. During the ratification of the new constitution, anti-federalists were so concerned about a possible repeat, that they demanded protections in the form of the Bill of Rights.

This should have been a fairly easy question. Since the Articles of Confederation allowed for only a legislature, all of the other answers (other than “Unicameral Legislature and Bicameral Legislature”) must be incorrect. Now, the only difficulty is determining which (unicameral or bicameral) is correct. Here, even if you’re not entirely sure of the meaning of uni/bicameral, you can apply basic prefix knowledge and assess that “uni” means one and “bi” means two. Then, you must simply remember that the Articles of Confederation legislature had only one chamber—thus the answer is “Unicameral” (which means one chamber).

This should have been a relatively easy question. The Seven Years War (the French and Indian War was the North American theater of the overall war) nearly bankrupted the British Empire. Wars are expensive to fight, and the French and Indian War was no exception. Moreover, the subjects of the British Empire (the citizens of England, essentially) were already the highest-taxed citizenry in the entire world, so the Brits were aware that, politically speaking, attempting to assess any additional taxes would be disagreeable, to say the least. Thus, the Brits turned their eyes to the colonies—the colonies who, due to smuggling, and lax oversight by the British government, were paying next to nothing in taxes of any kind.

Open and shut answer here, no tricks or gimmicks. The Articles of Confederation imposed very high transaction costs on all parties involved (transaction costs, of course, are the time effort and money it takes to get something done). The transaction costs were so high that it took a unanimous vote to amend the Articles of Confederation.

This question assesses your ability to remember the weaknesses of the Articles of Confederation. One of the weaknesses, of course, was the government’s inability to control interstate (between-states) commerce. This led to states raising all sorts of trade barriers against one another and inadvertently hurting both themselves and the fledgling country.

The Proclamation Line of 1763 was created by Great Britain so that conflict between Native Americans and the American colonists would be avoided. By setting a settlement line along the Appalachian mountains, they hoped that lack of physical proximity and encroachment would eliminate conflict between the two groups.

Similar to Enlightenment ideas, the American Revolution and the Declaration of Independence supported the ideas that if the government does not protect the rights of the people, a revolution is justified. 

The Second Continental Congress established itself as the primary governing body during the Revolutionary War and began to make all the necessary steps in order that the country should be able to effectively wage war. The Olive Branch petition was roundly refuted by the British, and indeed most Representatives believed it to be little more than a piece of propaganda. Much more important were the dispatches to other European nations requesting economic or even military assistance. One consequence of this was France entering the war on the side of the colonists. The Congress also ratified the Declaration of Independence, but did not ratify the Constitution (that would not happen until 1789). Instead, they proposed an Articles of Confederation, which would serve as the governing document between 1781-1789, the years immediately following war.